Aikido Friday Night - 08/20/10

Aikidokas: Tim, Trey, Troy, and Dan.

Ukemi: I got a partial warm-up set in, no big falls.  I spent quite a bit of time watching Dan.  I think he made a big leap in ability this evening.  I'm not sure what caused it, but I hope he's able to keep it up so we can move from the crash pad to the regular mats soon. 

The Walk: Twice. 

Releases: Worked with Dan.  We spent quite a bit of time on them.

Techniques:

I worked with Dan on Shomen-ate for about 30 minutes.  I think he made some great progress. 

He started out intercepting my attack and redirecting it upwards and ending up in my playground.  I tried a number of things to eliminate that problem and finally found one that worked.  I had him take me off-balance with just his fingertips.  It took a few reps, but he was able to do it.  I then had him take me off balance with just the fingertips of his pinky and the neighboring finger.  He was able to do that.  I then had him take my balance with just the outer edge of his pinky and hand.  He was able to do that.

An interesting side effect of the attention paid to the off-balance was that his feet ended up in a really strong position.  I'm not certain how it happened, and I'm not going to question it.

Aftermath: None of note.